Long simmering differences over Syria have erupted to the boiling point with the fall of east Aleppo. The disputes are over life & death questions for millions of Syrians–actually for the entire Middle East–so there’s nothing collegial about them & they cannot be brokered through platonic discourse & diplomacy. The likelihood is that persecution & discrimination against Muslims, particularly women, & refugees will increase because of rising nationalism & xenophobia fed by Assadist vituperations about “jihadist terrorists.”

It has to be said frankly that racism & white supremacy are central to the differences which is evidenced most markedly by how Assad supporters approach the issues in Syria. Though they posit themselves as humanitarian, their point of reference is not the bombing of civilians, the deaths of 500,000 people, the internal displacement of 7 million Syrians & the refugee flight of 5 million others. Assad supporters don’t even ask about any of that.

What absorbs their attention is a visceral, apolitical hatred for US intervention. US militarism is certainly a worthy object for hatred but Assadists are unable to elaborate US policy anywhere except with the formulaic “regime-change” scenario–as if there were no complexities to societies in the Middle East nor different strategies required for political & military intervention. That hate thing has an irrational character not because it is against US militarism (the majority of the human race hates US militarism) but because it doesn’t have much to do with the unimaginable suffering of the Syrian people or their thwarted aspirations for freedom from dictatorship. There’s no–for want of a better word–human aspect to the hatred.

Then there’s that peculiar fetish about mainstream media, about how it’s all lies & only Vanessa Beeley & Eva Bartlett who both spent just a few weeks in Syria can be trusted. Just in the past 48 hours thousands of Assad supporters have circulated a video of a western woman mocking & discrediting the Syrian journalists reporting from within east Aleppo. The racism almost takes your breath away. Two western women with almost no experience in Syria who travel there accompanied by Assad officials & under Syrian military security are trusted about Syrian politics but Syrian journalists are maligned as frauds associated with “jihadists” & perpetrating fake news.

Once the Assadists start in on the US-backed “head-chopping jihadist terrorists,” there’s no stopping them & no reasoning possible. They enter a whole other dimension of white supremacy, unhinged territory so evocative of the KKK & fascism. The process called “othering” goes into overdrive.

We need to understand this rupture taking place because it’s a watershed moment in time. But our primary focus must be unifying & mobilizing those who stand with the people of Syria against Assad’s dictatorship & against foreign military intervention of any kind from any country.

Cartoon is by Nicola Jennings on Bashar al-Assad & the fall of Aleppo.

Assadists–a word both epithet & political designation–portray the conflict in Syria as between a secular, benevolent regime & US-backed “jihadist terrorists.” They disappear millions of Syrian civilians, deny the popular democratic movement against Assad & portray it only as extremist Islamist militias driven by Sharia law.

According to media sources, there are over 1,000 armed militias operating in Syria. Who knows for sure? But there are a lot of them & the political character & field of operation of each of them remains unknown, except for the most prominent groups & to Syrian civilians who deal with them in daily life.

Some are Assadist-militias or collaborating with his regime; some are armed & trained by the US, including some by the CIA & some by the US military; others are Hezbollah fighters or mercenaries recruited from regimes for & against Assad. Some developed out of the 2011 popular uprising against Assad when he began bombing cities & civilians to destroy the uprising. These are considered freedom fighters.

There’s no denying some groups, like ISIS & al-Qaeda, are extremists who engage in barbaric acts of war. But Assadists depict them all as “head-chopping jihadists.” “There are no moderate militias” is a central mantra in their repertoire of war propaganda used first by the US Pentagon to justify its “war on terror” & now by Assad to justify military assault on the popular movement against him. Of course it is a question if the paramilitary carnage comes even close to the horrors of Syrian & Russian carpet bombing of cities & hundreds of thousands of civilians that has gone on now over five years.

When those who oppose Assad’s dictatorship, the bombing of civilians, & all foreign intervention into Syria object to the hate-filled, outright Islamophobic depiction of militias, it is not to deny the existence or barbarism of extremist militias. It is to distinguish between militias & civilians & to expose & denounce Assad’s justification for carpet bombing civilians. It is to demand Assadists stop repeating his justifications & stop covering for his monstrous war crimes.

Assadists only oppose US-NATO intervention but if asked to elaborate the strategy of US military intervention in Syria, they can only talk about regime-change & “jihadists” with absolutely nothing to back up their claims. That’s not all their fault because so much of US intervention in Syria is secret–except to Syrians of course. The political problem is that Assadists don’t require such analyses because everything they claim comes straight from Assad & stamped with his approval.

The only principled antiwar demands are:

–the immediate cessation of Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians;
–the immediate cessation of US-NATO bombing under the guise of combating SIS;
–no US, Russian, Iranian, or other foreign agents arming, training, funding to militias;
–the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces & undercover operatives in Syria.

When the battlefield is cleared & Syrians can come out of their bunkers without fear of being bombed to smithereens, they will effectively deal with Assad–if their remarkable toughness under siege in east Aleppo is any political gauge.

(Photo is displaced civilians in east Aleppo from AFP/Getty Images)

Hilarious rebuttal to Assad propagandists who insist we read only sanctioned sources for news:

“Here lies Gina. MSM shill.”

Gina Marie Nacarato